DRINK IT ANYWAY
1563 4D
“Money at last.” Deen fingered one of the hundred-pieces Jeddin had given them. “Well, he was all right with us, wasn’t he? Now for the stores.” They had moved out of the dance lines into a darker niche.
“With no lights and not much air circulation, do you think anything’s open?” Marra scanned the large space before them, a domed confluence of several streets and corridors. A few lighted cubbies. The air stank; without the recycling power, the old shafts had had to be opened to reactivate the passive air exchange with the surface far above.
Aoriver asked her, Is Jeddin coming back?
“Why?” she muttered, glancing at Deen. Deen shook her head.
He is taking away knowledge we keep secret. We can’t let him do that.
“So you want to…" Marra wanted to ask what Jeddin knew, but steered away from that. Aoriver had been a less-than-friendly inhabitant on occasion.
We must prevent him from telling others. We will do what we must.
“Like kill him?”
I don’t know yet.
Marra looked at Deen. “Is Oortonel— about Jeddin?”
“Yes, and I don’t want anything to do with their problems.”
“Neither do I.” Marra stamped her foot to a new rhythm that wove itself in under the others. She raised her arms and swayed into line again, feeling Deen‘s thighs press in behind hers. “I always wanted to do this again.”
“Remember the two guys we found near Poly Town that one time, fifty years ago?” Deen‘s breath came in her ear. Deen never forgot. Unless their resurrection had omitted something— but if it had affected both of them, how would they find out? Marra shrugged, stamped and started to sing with the other women around them.
This is very important. We must find him again and talk to him.
Marra clenched her teeth. “Not now,” she muttered, “We’ll do it later. Leave us alone, let us enjoy this for a little while.”
Must I take action alone? The voice carried a chill of menace. Aoriver had just once overridden her, using her own body chemistry against her. The pain and humiliation surged through her again; she had sworn she would never again allow that to happen. Now she had to use her carefully-worked-out response.
“I know. Follow me.” Marra scanned the intersection. Shops — let’s see — there, several open. The local herbalist. “All right, we’ll go after him,” she murmured to Aoriver, “But we need something special first. Just this one stop?”
That’s better. But make it fast. He seemed to be in a hurry.
They stopped in the herbal shop, ducking huge hand-shaped leaves that smelled bitter and dark. Marra raced through her transaction, selecting some tiny nine-lobed mentarine blossoms, living and laden with pollen, along with their stems and leaves, and getting a small bottle of aromatic oil.
On the way out, Marra crushed the blossoms and shoved them in the bottle, capping it and shaking it vigorously. In the growing heat of the dancers, she put the bottle to her lips and drank half of it, taking her share of the blossoms with her tongue and leaving the rest for Deen. This had better work the way she thought it would. Aoriver had never figured out what had happened the last time.
“Here. You take the rest, blossoms and all.”
“Is this another of your old party tricks?”
“You guessed. Too bad. Drink it anyway.” Deen obeyed, laughing.
Ready now? See that staircase? Aoriver eagerly broke in.
“Yes.” Marra pointed and Deen stared.
That’s the way he went. Hurry.
As they worked their way toward the door, Marra stuck a leaf and stem in her mouth, and began chewing. Oh, the sweetness! She hadn’t remembered this uplifting feeling. Her entire body feeling lighter, she gestured to Deen to do the same.
“Good earth and sky, what is that?” Deen asked.
“For celebration,” Marra said. They reached the stair entrance, and went in. The stairs went both up and down.
I’ll use your nose. Take a step up and draw a deep breath through your nostrils. Yes. He went this way. Aaahh. Up, up, up the stairs. Aoriver‘s voice slurred a bit. Marra looked at Deen as they took a step up; they exchanged smiles.
Up, up, up, this way, use your nose, hey, it’s time to dance. Come in and visit while we chase, chase through space. And Marra found herself abruptly in the deep innerspace garden with Aoriver and Oortonel and Deen, and they danced to an oddly distorted Corsang Run beat that leaked in through an arbored stair emerging from the earth, a gaudy, cockeyed sign above it announcing BLESSED COPULATION. Naked sleeping figures, sprawled across each other in a weave of flesh, festooned the soft places of the garden.
“Who are all these people?” Marra asked Aoriver, but the alien spun like a top, sending sparks of light curling off in all directions, and Oortonel joined her, and the two shining figures spun away into the vast emptiness of the inward sky.
“What was that stuff?” Deen asked.
“The herbs?”
“Yes, the herbs.”
“One of my experimental recipes.” Marra looked around. “Maybe it worked too well. How do we get out of here?”
“Try the stairs.” Deen pointed to the downward-leading arbor. Passing beneath the flashy sign, they descended under flowers into darkness,
and found themselves in the City stairwell once more, leaning against the stone wall, some men and women dancing past them and laughing out a song.
